Review: The Night Manager
Ten years ago, it wasn’t very easy for a movie or TV show to get a book adaptation right. As a teenager, I cringed as I watched the Harry Potter films go bust midway, all because of poor adaptation and time constraints when it came to film.
I have to say, in the last decade or so, the quality of TV and film adaptations has gotten way better. Gone Girl was one of the most brilliant films of 2014. Game of Thrones is probably the most popular show of the last decade. And last year’s breakout hit, Big Little Lies, was, in my opinion, one of the most well-made shows of 2017, so well made that it was better than the book.
I must confess I’d been meaning to watch this show, toplined by Tom Hiddleston whom I’ve long admired and the wonderful Hugh Laurie (House fans, ahoy!). I haven’t read John le Carré’s 1993 novel of the same name, so I don’t really have any context to compare this to the book. What did make this attractive for me was that it wasn’t one of those long drawn out series. Six episodes, about 45 minutes to an hour each. That’s it.
The series starts off with Jonathan Pine, a former British army soldier and night manager at a luxury hotel in Cairo, unearthing an illegal weapons deal, courtesy of a guest, Sophie Alekan, the mistress of a top businessman, Freddie Hamid, whose family owns half of Egypt. He tips off British intelligence, resulting in someone in the higher ups tipping off Richard Roper, the influential billionaire behind the illegal weapons deal. In his efforts to protect her, Pine becomes romantically involved with Sophie. Angela Burr, an honest MI6 official fighting bureaucracy and corruption to try to nail Roper, receives the tip in her mail in London through Pine’s local contact in Cairo. She warns Pine to save Sophie. Arriving too late, he discovers Sophie killed in her hotel room. Shattered, he withdraws from Cairo, wipes it off his resume and makes a fresh start in the Western part of the world.
Four years later, we find him serving as a night manager at a luxury hotel in Switzerland where he is startled to find Richard Roper among the arriving guests. He tips off Burr and this sets off a chain of events involving her secretly recruiting him to go undercover and infiltrate Roper’s inner circle. Like your typical James Bond film, once he does manage to get in, the gangster’s right hand man, is deeply suspicious of Pine; the gangster’s moll, Jed, is drawn to him, while the gangster himself welcomes the prospect of a new, able man taking up the mantle of expanding the business. The rest of the story follows Pine as he slowly works his way towards exposing the true nature of Roper’s illegal business to the world.
Due to this being a show and not a film, I wasn’t sure if he’d get to the exposing part before the series finale, and so, I was genuinely curious as to how they’d wrap this season up. The story is pretty straightforward, but it would be like any other James Bond film, were it not for the amazing cast bringing these characters to life.
Tom Hollander, who I last remember seeing as Cutler Beckett in the original Pirates of the Carribean trilogy, sports pretty much the same expressions of doubt and skepticism as Major Corcoran, Roper’s right hand man. The range of expressions he sports had me thinking that he was probably the man for this kind of role. He does a good job for someone who looks to plant that seed of doubt in the chief antagonist’s mind. Speaking of chief antagonists, I’ve always been a fan of Hugh Laurie, my favourite being his old British comedy sketches with Stephen Fry. His Richard Onslow Roper, is known as the worst man in the world, and while Roper is right in saying he isn’t the one that does anything, through the story’s progression we see what we already know; he does enough, fills the right pockets, speaks to the right people to get the job done — kill people, destabilize governments, start a war or crush a popular uprising.
But why exactly Roper is known as “the worst man in the world” is exposed by Olivia Coleman’s Angela Burr — Jonathan Pine’s quietly brilliant handler at MI6. When someone asks Burr why she is at her work station day and night waiting to hear from Pine despite being pregnant, she cites a day she spent in a city where sarin gas was dropped at a local school, resulting in the death of hundreds of children. Roper noticed the buzz it created, and only started selling sarin after that. The scene not only gives the audience insight into Burr’s steadfast pursuit of justice but also serves as a plot device to expose just how horrible Roper really is, in leveraging a tragedy as a business opportunity. Hugh Laurie’s understated performance as Roper received a very well-deserved Golden Globe. Even though Tom Hiddleston’s Pine, is the chief protagonist of the show, his character gets its big moments when he’s reacting to Burr and Roper’s actions. It is a mark of how great actors are — when they serve as the springboard for another actor’s fantastic performance and both Laurie and Coleman do just that.
Finally, Tom Hiddleston! I must confess, I have the biggest crush on his voice and I have honestly grown a bit tired of seeing him as the God of Mischief in his Loki act. I truly believe that Hiddleston is a fine actor whose potential hasn’t yet been tapped by a bigger franchise outside of the fantasy genre. So if say, Sam Mendes decided to make a James Bond origins movie, Hiddleston’s the man. He slips into the role of the hotel manager turned spy with finesse that would give Daniel Craig a run for his money. He’s got the warmth, charm and the sharpness, while still retaining the emotion behind why he chose this mission in the first place. While Burr and Roper serve as the catalysts for his character being goaded into action at various points, Hiddleston, as Pine, holds his own for most of the series. A word also, for Elizabeth Debicki, who, as Roper’s girlfriend serves as Pine’s soft spot and part motivation for doing the right thing.
In the last episode of the series especially, without giving too much away, I love how the plot comes back full circle to the same place, the same people and the same situation. It’s a nice touch that the show takes us on the discovery route only to bring us back to the same point in the storyline with the same conflict.
Thrillers that are heavy handed in terms of too many sub plots often tend to meander but the pace and length of this show give the viewer ample time to process the goings-on of the show, including the moving of all the pieces on the chess board for it to all come together. With great pace and a very well-written screenplay by David Farr, Susanne Bier directs an excellent six episode series. Should they choose to do a second series, I’d be very happy to watch Tom Hiddleston back in action as Pine, in a different geographic setting perhaps. This series does have the potential to take off in a big way. If developed right, it has the potential to become the next 24.
A version of this was published here: https://sanikatillway.wordpress.com/2018/04/26/review-the-night-manager/
